Form and Fabric: Fish Island Village, Hackney Wick

Talk + networking reception

The modern history of Fish Island and Hackney Wick in east London is one of continuous industrial innovation and change. This has profoundly shaped to the spatial organisation of the area and the buildings that are found there. This talk by Graham Haworth, Haworth Tompkins, Luke Tozer, Pitman Tozer Architects and David Lyndon, Lyndon Goode Architects explores their collaborative approach to urban regeneration at Fish Island Village, one which places importance on learning from and adapting the existing architectural context.

Emphasising cities and neighbourhoods and how they work, evolve and change, the architects identified more intangible elements like character, materiality, scale, and cultural principles influencing design. Attention has been paid to both building usage and the spatial planning of the area, which echoes the distinctive yard spaces that have become important sites of social and creative activity. Identifying key typologies in the area has given cues on form – warehouses, wharves and maisonettes – and materiality, mainly mixed brick and concrete.

The resulting Fish Island Village development extends from the architects’ belief that responding to material, formal and spatial context can achieve a degree of coherency between a site and its wider surroundings that goes beyond questions of style.